Senior Cmdr. Kurt Hallstrom demonstrates the PepperBall platform, which shoots pellets that have a similar effect as pepper spray, in St. Paul, Feb. 6, 2019. The St. Paul Police Department will be conducting a 2-3 month pilot program to test the system among a limited number of officers. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

St. Paul police officers who encounter someone who is armed with a knife or bat and acting aggressively have a new way to respond.

The police department has begun a pilot program of PepperBall. An officer uses a launcher, which looks like a handgun with orange along the top, to shoot a powder with a similar effect as pepper spray.

“We want to give officers as many options as possible to bring a resolution to a call without having to result in deadly force,” said Senior Cmdr. Kurt Hallstrom, who heads the special operations unit. “It’s not the magic tool that’s going to prevent bad things from happening, but it’s a useful tool with a pretty low level of force.”

While a presidential task force on 21st-century policing recently recommended law enforcement agencies use “less than lethal” technology, PepperBall can be controversial.

Teresa Nelson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, said she believes St. Paul should focus instead on using trained crisis responders, such as a program in Eugene, Ore., that provides mobile crisis intervention around the clock.

“Instead of putting money into military-style munitions, we need more resources for people experiencing mental health crises, and better training and policies around de-escalation for police,” Nelson said. “So-called less lethal weapons can still kill or seriously harm people.”

WHEN AN OFFICER MAY USE PEPPERBALL

When officers encounter someone armed with a weapon other than a gun and the person won’t drop it, their options have been limited, Hallstrom said.

An officer could use a Taser, but they need to be within 20 feet of the individual and a Taser is only effective about half of the time, according to Hallstrom. Spraying someone with pepper spray may require an officer to get even closer.

Senior Cmdr. Kurt Hallstrom, who heads the special operations unit of the St. Paul Police Department, shows a PepperBall. The police department is conducting a pilot program of the system. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

PepperBall can be shot at a person from 60 feet away and launched into an area from 150 feet away.

“Time, distance are all things that we encourage our officers to maintain,” Hallstrom said.

The projectile looks like a paintball and is about the size of a marble. Officers will give a warning before using it, when possible, though Hallstrom said sometimes situations unfold quickly.

When a person is struck with the projectile, it releases a pharmaceutical-grade pepper powder, Hallstrom said. The irritant causes people to cough and “makes it uncomfortable for you to want to stay in an environment,” but once you’re out of the area, the effects go away more quickly than if you were sprayed with pepper spray, Hallstrom said.

Police can also shoot PepperBall into a room if someone is barricaded inside or into an area where they’re trying to get people to disperse from a bar fight, for example.

John Thompson, who founded Fight for Justice LLC after his friend Philando Castile was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer, said he asked St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell at the end of last year, “Why is it that the gun seems to be the option of choice out of all the tools on the (officer’s) belt?”

Axtell told him about plans to roll out PepperBall.

“It’s better than what they’re using right now because they’re using live bullets,” Thompson said. “If they use it correctly and you can actually subdue or grab someone you’re trying to arrest, as opposed to shooting them, it’s going in the semi-right direction.”

OFFICERS TOLD TO AVOID THE HEAD

If an officer is shooting PepperBall at an individual, they are instructed to avoid the head, neck, spine and groin, Hallstrom said. He said he has not found fatalities that were “directly linked to the use of PepperBall.”

“It might be something we consider down the road, but right now it’s not going to be used to do that,” Hallstrom said.

PILOT PROGRAM UNDERWAY

After researching PepperBall since last February, the first officers began carrying it on Friday; it had not been used as of Wednesday. Other officers are going through training now.

For the next two to three months, about 100 officers in St. Paul’s Central District — which includes the North End, downtown and the West Side — will have access to PepperBall.

The St. Paul Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the police department, provided $50,000 for the project. The police department spent about $25,000 for 50 PepperBall devices and equipment for the pilot program.

Laura Jones, a St. Paul resident who is a researcher on criminal justice reform policy, questioned why the department is adding PepperBall when people are still seeking information about officers’ use of force.

Axtell told the city council in June that officers use force in about 0.2 percent of 280,000 annual calls for service, and the department will post use-of-force data later in the year. Jones said she and others have been waiting to review the data.

The department intends to release the information shortly, a police spokesman said this week.

But Jones — a member of the Root and Restore St. Paul coalition, which is working to grow community-first safety approaches — said she’s “concerned that the department and the city are expanding the arsenal of weapons instead of increasing transparency and accountability and reducing the need for use of force.”

Mara Gottfried has been a Pioneer Press reporter since 2001, mostly covering public safety. Gottfried lived in St. Paul as a young child and returned to the Twin Cities after graduating from the University of Maryland. You can reach her at 651-228-5262.

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